Thursday, November 12, 2015

Staunton, November 12 – Ukraine’s
Verkhovna Rada today declared the Soviet deportation of the Crimean Tatars an
act of genocide and announced that henceforth Ukrainians will mark May 18th,
the anniversary of that deportation, as the Day of Memory of the Victims of the
Genocide of the Crimean Tatar People.

The last is especially important
because many do not understand that such actions are defined as acts of
genocide under international law.Two
days ago, Lyudmyla Denysova, head of the Verkhovna Rada delegation to the
Parliamentary Assembly of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation, pointed that out
at a meeting of PABSEC in Tirana.

He says the Kremlin decided to annex
Crimea in order to boost Putin’s rating, noting that the annexation is “the
single popular theme among the people.”But Gudkov suggests that such popularity has proved short-lived because
the authorities “did not calculate either the economic or the geopolitical
consequences” of their action.

And while Gudkov does not mention
it, those around Putin clearly did not and do not understand that by their
actions in occupied Crimea now, they are in violation of the Genocide
Convention.Kyiv, by its actions, has
reminded the world of this sad reality.